State of the Mobile Web, August 2012

The mobile web atlas of Latin America

Latin America shares the large trends with most of the online world, with the “big three”, Google, Facebook and YouTube, occupying the top spots in each of the 32 countries examined in this State of the Mobile Web report, which focuses on Latin America. Spanning from Mexico in the north to Chile in the south, Opera Mini browser users in Latin America like to shop and read up on regional news, as shown in the top 10 lists of sites surveyed for this State of the Mobile Web report. The regional growth is strong, and nearly all countries show a growing user base of Opera Mini users in Latin America. There is also a significant growth in pages viewed on each device and data consumed by the increasing user base.

Last month, we examined smartphone use in the Asia Pacific and found that smartphones make up a large part of the Opera Mini user base in that region. The same survey was conducted for Latin America, with similar results. In July 2011, smartphones made up around 18% of the user base of Opera Mini, a share that increased to 34% in July 2012. As an example, in Brazil, the share of monthly counted smartphone users of Opera Mini increased from 13% in July 2011 to 29% in July 2012. The Android platform is the main driver in the smartphone growth in Latin America, as well as Asia Pacific.

For Brazil the Opera Mini marketshare on smartphones seems to be ahead of the regional smartphone growth. According to the “Our Mobile Planet” study, the market share of smartphones in Brazil is 14% of the total market. In Brazil, the Opera Mini market share for smartphones is 29% according to anonymous and aggregated data from the Opera Mini servers. In the Latin America region, the smartphone share of Opera Mini market in the total base of LatAm Opera Mini installations increased from roughly 18% measured in July 2011 to 34% as measured in July 2012.

In Latin American countries, the top key trends include the following:

• The top Opera Mini user growth countries in the region are Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Peru and Honduras.
• Haiti seems to be the country with the fastest uptake of mobile surfing habits. Having very few fixed lines, but a 50% mobile penetration, it seems to follow the same pattern as other developing countries.
• Regional sites like MercadoLibre are represented three times in the top 10 lists. Local news sites are also well represented, especially in the smaller countries.
• The landscape of devices seems to be a bit more diverse than what was found in the last two State of the Mobile Web reports. There are fewer Nokia devices in the lists and more Samsung and BlackBerry devices.

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Growth

As of the April 2012 State of the Mobile Web, we now report both Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers. Read more about this change.

In August 2012, the consumer base of the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers increased in unique users. In all, more than 209.9 million people used Opera Mini or Opera Mobile in August. The Opera Mini servers (which do not process pages from Opera Mobile browsers) served 122 billion pages and compressed over 2 petabytes of data for Opera Mini users.

Number of mobile product users

In August 2012, there were over 209.9 million Opera Mini and Opera Mobile users. Out of this number, more than 18.9 million were Opera Mobile users, and the rest were Opera Mini users. Compared to August 2011, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile combined grew more than 40% year over year.

Month	Opera Mini	Total users
August 2012	190,999,377	209,908,472
July 2012	187,147,324	205,770,416
June 2012	182,464,716	200,350,248
May 2012	178,525,801	196,186,735
April 2012	165,516,827	189,631,504
March 2012	168,844,460	193,009,533
February 2012	160,016,472	183,714,665
January 2012	159,033,038	182,787,117
December 2011	152,651,224	175,940,168
November 2011	144,601,830	166,574,676
October 2011	140,001,098	161,863,689
September 2011	131,319,238	153,031,280
August 2011	128,004,536	149,726,810
July 2011	121,789,463	143,247,132
June 2011	115,058,129	136,220,211
May 2011	113,511,756	134,760,861
April 2011	107,159,911	128,275,809
March 2011	102,488,824	123,389,860
February 2011	89,813,250	110,370,647
January 2011	90,368,678	111,009,722
December 2010	85,540,776	105,882,284
November 2010	80,059,737	98,259,922
October 2010	76,326,877	92,176,914
September 2010	71,292,840	84,693,202

Opera Mini pages transcoded

Opera Mini users viewed over 122 billion pages in August 2012. Since August 2011, page views have increased by more than 53%.

Month	Page views
August 2012	122,366,916,411
July 2012	116,520,625,707
June 2012	115,070,847,433
May 2012	113,788,248,994
April 2012	109,172,778,122
March 2012	117,133,940,573
February 2012	108,322,127,981
January 2012	108,711,984,250
December 2011	103,156,318,112
November 2011	88,516,536,629
October 2011	86,241,891,002
September 2011	79,164,254,190
August 2011	79,594,255,478
July 2011	74,078,891,600
June 2011	67,303,912,324
May 2011	63,386,735,162
April 2011	57,935,683,078
March 2011	59,768,735,532
February 2011	51,531,490,158
January 2011	52,377,317,703
December 2010	46,725,301,390
November 2010	44,652,355,113
October 2010	41,623,101,976
September 2010	36,972,736,551

Opera Mini data consumed

In August 2012, Opera Mini users generated over 2.21 billion MB of data for operators worldwide. Data in the Opera Mini browser is compressed by up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 22 petabytes of data in August. Since August 2011, data traffic has risen by more than 79%.

Month	Data transfer (MB)
August 2012	2,215,469,446
July 2012	2,109,653,045
June 2012	2,015,528,597
May 2012	1,983,411,220
April 2012	1,906,598,921
March 2012	1,918,118,366
February 2012	1,916,961,696
January 2012	1,831,047,506
December 2011	1,663,600,099
November 2011	1,421,897,839
October 2011	1,360,336,480
September 2011	1,251,149,418
August 2011	1,232,303,979
July 2011	1,170,603,288
June 2011	1,068,360,258
May 2011	1,031,183,476
April 2011	954,840,197
March 2011	946,210,968
February 2011	790,192,801
January 2011	804,000,878
December 2010	706,327,921
November 2010	677,508,852
October 2010	616,192,761
September 2010	535,337,310